


Prejudice

by angelkat



Series: The Wee Compendium of Sweet Ginger [9]
Category: The Adventures of Puss in Boots (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:56:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21806251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelkat/pseuds/angelkat
Summary: In which Señora Zapata hates Puss in Boots' guts.
Relationships: Puss in Boots & Señora Zapata, Puss in Boots/Dulcinea
Series: The Wee Compendium of Sweet Ginger [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571299
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Prejudice

Señora Zapata despised Puss in the Boots' guts with the blinding flare of a thousand dying suns.

It was from the moment her perpetually critical eyes landed on that suspiciously leather-clad tabby feline when she first felt that wild hatred erupt from her chest.

And _boy_ had it erupted.

From those strikingly _invasive_ green eyes, to that irritatingly _knavish_ smirk, to that infuriatingly _arrogant_ posture, _and_ maddeningly self-conceited attire—let's not forget that swollen head of his, filled with self-importance so exaggerated she wouldn't mind to have it burst and splatter across the planet just so she could _dance_ on the darn bastard's pool of blood—Señora Zapata was convinced that this, this rat, this cuss, this persistently obnoxious _vermin_ , absolutely did _not_ deserve the tiniest shred of the benefit of her doubt.

He gave her no reason to. He strutted around her town like _he_ was the one who owned it—like she didn't see him for the true, vile monster that he was within!

He was danger. She had read numerous books about this. He had to have worn that sword around his belt in the first place _because_ there was a reason. She did not know what reason it was—and no, for the life of her she was _not_ curious, no she was _not_ —but she was entirely convinced that if he was a person skilled in fighting _then_ he must have been up to no good during the life he led prior to his arrival in San Lorenzo.

He was an outsider. He was a spawn of the place where villainy thrived and greed reigned—the outside world was a dirty, dirty place with people incessantly breeding their own dirty kind to fill the earth and sprawl over its surface to greedily and grubbily grab everything they could with their greedy, grubby, grabby little paws.

He was a scoundrel. A _thief_. His inborn greed had destroyed their protection spell in the first place. It was _his._ _stupid_. _greed!_ Why she was the only one who could starkly see him for who—no, _what_ he is, she could never understand. Everyone had to suffer from _his_ sin, but one way or another, _everyone_ seemed to so blindly push that fact aside and actually _liked_ him despite all that he did to them. The kids. Pajuna.

Dulcinea.

It was infinitely bad enough that he had found their hidden mystic town in the first place because he was _stalking_ her like the sneaky creep he was, but then he had to disguise his disgusting stalker moves as an act of 'chivalry' because he 'worried' for her 'safety'.

The gall.

The _gall_.

He had the nerve to say he only wanted to protect her from the thieves when it was people like _him_ who everyone should be protected from. Never mind having entered the town because of that old 'only people with good hearts could enter' rule-thing—BAH! What did Dulcinea know? The naïve, gullible, ridiculously innocent girl knew _nothing_. She could practically see it, how Dulcinea _poured_ her entire heart into trusting that booted feline Lothario—even after the many, many times she had warned her about his potential history as nothing but a mangy little skirt chaser.

But then oh, Dulcinea, kindness personified, would proceed to lecture her about not judging a book by the cover, about how it was unfair to put Puss in Boots to such a deep low when they had barely gotten to know him for less than a day. It was unbelievable, that naivety! If Zapata did not judge the book by the cover, then they would be marching on blinded and unarmed when they do finally decide to explore its vile contents. _Someone_ had to scorn him, and hate him, and doubt him, and if it had to be her, then so be it.

And less than a day of knowing him was enough. _More_ than enough. Did Dulcinea not _see_ how Puss advanced on her, getting all assertive when taking her paw or touching her shoulder or _smirking_ at her in a severely inappropriate manner whenever she was _not_ looking? That kind of advancement when he knew Dulcinea for barely _less_ than a day spoke volumes of how such a slimy salamander he was. Zapata just wished she wouldn't be so blinded, but Dulcinea trusted him far too much for her own good. Sweet mother of San Lorenzo…it would even be foolish for Zapata to _not_ see how painfully obvious it was, that Dulcinea actually _liked_ him. Which was not. good.

She even had the slightest suspicion that maybe _she_ was the one who had purposefully led him to San Lorenzo in the first place.

And that made him a bad apple. Dulcinea could never fathom what it was like, the devious machinations of those who belong and have been spawned from the outside world; she never had to learn how to place distrust onto those who deserve nothing _but_ , and nor does she deserve the heartbreak of having her trust shattered into a thousand little irredeemable shards.

So Señora Zapata had decided that she would be the one to distrust Puss in the Boots for her.

Puss in the Boots was a danger, an outsider, a scoundrel and a thief—and, as if that set of credentials didn't degrade him enough as to make him the lowest of the low…

He just _had_ to be Spanish as well.

Not to be such a bitter misandrist specific to the men of Spain, but that was _exactly_ what made him such a real live danger to Dulcinea.

Men in general—the Spanish men more so—oh, they were the absolute _worst_.

They were a bunch of womanizing flirts who thought of their opposite sex as fair damsels in distress in desperate need of their amorous overtures. They thought themselves to be so handsome and charming when all Zapata wanted to do with their face was scrub them against a concrete wall if only to get rid of the smug smirks that never seemed to leave their filthy, filthy mouths that have most likely stained the white purity of one too many girls. They looked at women as objects, as prizes to win, as trophies to earn, as another point to add to their personal scoreboard, to be displayed as a proud proof of their damn _masculinity_.

Señora Esmeralda Velasquez-Zapata, having divorced the vicious man—no, _rat_ —who stripped her of her maiden name, knew these facts far _better_ than anyone.

The man she thought she loved had discarded her the moment he'd finished exploiting her.

He had _exploited_ her, like she was a goddamn well of _resource_.

She had gone through a terrible heartbreak, but that single tragic stage of her life had only forged her to become the iron woman she was now.

"Puss in the Boots, stay away from her."

"Puss in the Boots, stop ogling her."

"Puss in the Boots, I will _kill_ you if you touch her so familiarly again."

"Puss in the Boots."

"Puss in the Boots."

"PUSS IN THE BOOTS, I _SAID_ PAWS _OFF_ OF HER!"

…she just did not want the same thing to happen to Dulcinea.

It was one night as she was having her late night leche at Pajuna's cantina, seated on her usual spot with a lit candle on her table when she suddenly felt the presence of someone else taking the seat across her. She was only vaguely aware of his presence though, because she was far too busy reading halfway through her thousand-page romance novel. Oh, sweet, romantic Arturo had just been about to ask Genevieve to a candlelit dinner when suddenly—

A paw reached out to the top of her book and attempted to push it down to the table, revealing the whiskered face of a distressed Puss in Boots making desperate eye-contact with her.

" _Señora_ ," he ground the word out as if for the thousandth time, "please, listen to me. No more of this. I—"

She snapped the book shut, forcing Puss to quickly draw back his paw with a wince.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

He hesitated for a moment, shrinking under her withering gaze, but then he straightened up and mustered his courage with him.

"Why do you dislike me so?"

"I do not dislike you."

His face brightened a tad. "Really?"

"I _despise_ you," she spat, and she saw his face fall before she decided to get up from her seat and proceeded to walk to the doors.

Jumping from his seat and dashing forward to block her path, he stood in front of her, arms spread out wide. The sincerity in his expression pled for her to stop a moment and hear him out.

"Señora, _please_ ," he implored, "I have been trying my hardest to gain everyone's favour by proving that I mean you no harm, but no matter what I do, you—you are the only one who remains to…treat me with…such hostility. Please, tell me. What can I do to amend whatever irredeemable evil you think I have done to you?"

 _Well you abandoned me_ , was the instinctual reply, and she was surprised to realize that those words had actually been burning at the tip of her tongue for _weeks_ now. She bit them back. She was consciously trying to avoid looking at his cavalier hat and those dusty boots and that leather belt from where his fencing sword hung, including his rough voice and tantalizing accent and green eyes and—and—

Ugh.

It was hard.

Because everything, almost _everything_ about this despicable cat…

Puss in Boots reminded her of Antonio Zapata.

No. She had to constantly remind herself that this cat actually was not Antonio Zapata, lest she lost herself in a rage that had been lying dormant for years and killed him. No, now was not the time for such a drastic measure.

Not yet at least.

" _Ha_ ," she spat the word like it was bile in her mouth, "Listen to yourself, asking what you had ever done, like _you_ are the one who is so _innocent!_ "

She attempted to walk past him again, but again he blocked her way.

"That…that thing with the coin," he said, and he sounded as if he was in pain. "I am sorry. I am sorry. I have done your town harm, destroyed your safety, your security—and this is why I am putting myself forward to protect you with my life. I am no replacement for the protection spell you had previously, but the reason I am doing this is because I recognize—I recognize that what I had done…please forgive me. It was a mistake."

"No," she contended, " _You_ are the mistake."

He flinched.

…too harsh?

Well, she could not care less. She walked past him again. She was a little disappointed that he did not stop her this time, but as she reached the doors and took one step out into the night—

"I would like to prove myself to you," he called to her from behind.

She stopped in her tracks.

Closed her eyes.

If he thought that showing off was the only way to please a woman's heart…

"I am not impressed by _show-offs_ , Puss in the Boots," were her final words, and from that time on, she had never seen nor heard of Puss in Boots again.

Perhaps it was because she'd been avoiding him. And in turn, he had begun to avoid her too.

And perhaps, that was for the best.

As long as he kept out of trouble and did his job in protecting the town right, she never did want him to show his face to her ever again.

Until one day…

"Dulcinea?" she said, knocking on the door of her room. "Dulcinea, it is time for breakfast."

Dulcinea had recently asked her a favour to wake her up every day at the break of dawn. That wasn't usually the case—she was perfectly capable of waking up early on her own—so it intrigued Zapata a little, why Dulcinea suddenly needed an alarm knock on her door from then on. But she never did ask her why. If Dulcinea didn't tell her, then that meant she didn't want to tell her, and Señora Zapata was civil enough to know when to step in, and when to step back.

When Dulcinea didn't answer her usual "Coming!" or "Okay," or even just anything resembling a word embedded in a sleepy yawn, Señora Zapata decided that that warranted her enough reason to step in.

Dulcinea never did lock her door. She insisted that it was always open for anyone who wanted to approach her. She was trusting, so naively trusting that way.

Zapata pushed the door open.

"Dulcinea, you—"

Then she paused.

Her bed was empty.

_Empty._

She marched out of her room and down the stairs of the orphanage, her trembling fists curled tight by her sides as an old anger in her pounding heart rose up to boil her very blood.

She saw this coming.

She had seen this coming from _a thousand miles away_.

"PUSS IN THE BOOOOOTS!"

She didn't care if it was early morning. She didn't care if everybody rioted against her for startling the town awake. She didn't care if she'd just barged onto Pajuna's cantina and nearly slammed the wooden doors out of their hinges from the force she'd inflicted on them and went stomping up the stairs like a monster ready to rip off the head of anyone who dared stand on her way, because Puss in Boots, oh, he would get it, he would _get_ what it's like to be stormed by the wrath of—

" _What are you doing to Dul—"_

She gasped and took a step back.

No.

No.

This—this can't be—

_No!_

"Oi, Zapata!" she heard Pajuna call from downstairs, but not really.

Her hearing sounded like her ears had been plugged in, and everything from the outside world drowned into the mad, stark raving _mad_ ranting of her brain—

_He's gone, Dulcinea's gone, the vile lizard must have stolen her in the middle of the night while everyone slept and took advantage of her and—and—_

She could not bear to think it.

"Zapata, what's goin' on up there?" Pajuna's voice was nearer now. "What's this racket about this early in—"

Zapata shouldered past Pajuna as she dashed down the stairs, each heavy footfall a resounding _thunk_ against the wood.

_He's gone._

_He kidnapped Dulcinea._

When she burst out of the cantina's doors, she was met by San Lorenzans blearily rubbing their eyes and yawning and stretching and walking out of their homes, asking what in the world all the shouting was about.

_He could have hurt her, or sold her, or—or worse—that vile philanderer might have—_

'I would like to prove myself to you,' he had said, and now all Señora Zapata could think of was 'Well, you've proven yourself EVERYTHING I thought you to be and _WORSE_ —'

"…ra Zapata? Señora Zapata!" an orange blur…a cat-shaped orange blur…Puss in the Boots?...was speaking to her, a worried urgency rumbling underneath his words. "How can I help you? What is the matter? Why are—"

Once she'd finally processed that _this is it, this is that vermin who deserved to die_ , it clicked.

"You," she shrilled, and she grabbed the cat by the scruff of his neck and slammed his entire body against the wall and kept him fixed over there with a hand on his neck.

"What have you _done_ to Dulcinea?!"

"I—I—" Shock. Confusion. Disbelief. He desperately tried to remove her hand from his neck with his small paws, but to no avail. "Dul—Dulcinea's—she—"

"What have you done to her?! SPIT IT OUT!"

"I have—done—n…nothing…"

She felt pain burst out of her knuckles where she was suddenly forced to let go of his neck, and _then_ her shoulders as someone violently shook her awake.

"Esmeralda, snap out of it," commanded Pajuna, and the fact that Pajuna used her first name effectively did yank her out of her stupor. "Puss did nothing wrong! You're gettin' way too ahead of yourself, princess. This paranoia's gettin' out of hand!"

Her breathing evened out. Her vision cleared. When she finally had her senses gathered about her…

She saw Pajuna, peering at her worriedly. The townspeople, gathered around them. And Puss…

He was on the floor on his knees with a paw pressed onto the ground and the other on his chest, his fur sticking out on ends and his breathing erratic. Everything looked the same about him, those same boots, that same belt and sword, those green eyes, but—

Something was missing.

Her voice soft, she weakly demanded, "Why are you not wearing your hat, Puss in the Boots?"

…And that was when she realized it.

Puss looked up at her.

Without that damned hat, it was not Antonio she saw.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, she saw _Puss in Boots_.

"I…este…my…hat?"

He was dumfounded.

Her fists fell as tired hands by her sides.

"Where is Dulcinea?" Her anger had already drained.

"I…I found her asleep by the boulder." Puss got up and dusted the dirt off his chest. "Where she usually read her bedtime stories to the flowers. And I thought she would find the stone floor cold, so I…"

"Oh, hello, hello!" someone interrupted, and all turned their heads to face the source of that angelic voice whose sweet, dulcet joy had already become so familiar to everyone. "Good morning, San Lorenzo! I see everyone's gathered out here today. What's the occasion, Pajuna? Señora Zapata? I was awakened by some sort of racket, and I thought…"

Dulcinea had walked out of the alley that led to the place Puss had just said—so the cat was not lying—and was now looking up at her and Pajuna.

Zapata could not help but feel a violent blush—of anger? embarrassment? shame?—spreading over her cheeks when she saw Dulcinea holding Puss' leather cavalier hat with both her white paws.

"Dulcinea," greeted Puss, saving both Pajuna and Zapata when they came up blank for answers, "Buenos días también. I hope you slept well?"

"Oh, I wouldn't have slept so well if it wasn't for your hat." She returned it to him and he slipped it back up his head. "That was so thoughtful of you. It made everything so much warmer. Thank you."

He smiled. "It is nothing. Breakfast?"

"Of course!"

He turned. "Pajuna?"

"R-Right, comin' right up," replied the cow, the mention of her name snapping her out of her daze. She rushed back into her cantina to manage what she had to manage—now that the whole town was up, she had work to do.

"Señora Zapata," said Puss, turning slightly to the side to give her a careful, tentative gaze, "ah…would you care to join us?"

_I…almost strangled you._

She did not want to ponder the possibilities of whether or not she intended to do it with the intention to kill.

… _How could you so easily forgive that?_

"I…"

She knew she should accept.

She knew she should join them, just to monitor this rascal and make sure he does not do any harm to Dulcinea.

"You should go," she said instead, much to Puss' surprise—but then she added, "Do not fool around."

She abruptly turned around and stomped back to the orphanage, making sure to slam the doors shut so the bang carried out across the plaza.

She spent the entire day rethinking everything she'd ever believed in, considered the fact that maybe, a scoundrel or a thief or a Spaniard though he was, he was not like…not all men was like Antonio Zapata.

That perhaps… 

Puss in the Boots did deserve the benefit of her doubt.

* * *

**8**  
_prejudice._


End file.
